


craquelure

by fireinmywoods



Series: palimpsest verse [5]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 16:43:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17811677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireinmywoods/pseuds/fireinmywoods
Summary: By far, though, the most peculiar thing about this insolent, loudmouthed, paradoxical confusion of a man is that Leonard’s not sure he’s ever really seen him smile.In which even the most convincing masks have to crack eventually.MAJOR SPOILERS FORPALIMPSEST. Please readthe main storyfirst.





	craquelure

**Author's Note:**

> I never considered writing this story until about four days ago, and now that it's here, I can't imagine it not existing. Even I'm surprised by the amount of actual plot that weaseled its way into this thing. But be not afraid, gentle readers: this began its life as yet another lovey-dovey pile of fluff, and there is still plenty of that too. Happy belated Valentine's Day, pals. Consider this my gift to you. ♥

**1**

Jim Kirk is a tricky one to pin down.

Depending on who you ask, he’s either a genius or a moron, a silver-tongued dreamboat or a sleaze, a future decorated Starfleet captain or a future felon.

(“Future _convicted_ felon,” is Jim’s helpful contribution to this last question, offhandedly enough that it’s impossible to tell whether he’s joking or not, which – you know what, Leonard’s not even gonna ask.)

He works his ass off to keep up with his ridiculous course load, then plays it off to their classmates like he’s barely trying. He deliberately arrives five minutes late for his biweekly meetings with his advisor despite the fact that even Leonard can tell he’s desperate to impress the man. He eats like a fussy toddler, turning up his nose at leafy greens and picking off any pizza topping with even a smidgen of nutrition, but if ever Leonard happens to get caught up studying and misses the window Jim’s apparently decreed to be their shared dinnertime, he can count on Jim tracking him down and forcing a full balanced meal on him, roasted Brussels sprouts and all.

(“You like that gross shit,” Jim says with a shrug when pressed on this discrepancy. “Who am I to judge? I’m just practicing my cultural sensitivity, Bones.”)

By far, though, the most peculiar thing about this insolent, loudmouthed, paradoxical confusion of a man is that Leonard’s not sure he’s ever really seen him smile.

Which isn’t to say he _doesn’t_ smile. No, Jim smiles plenty. The kid’s got a big mouth in every conceivable way, and he flashes his wide sparkling pretty-boy grin a hundred times a day, at professors and superior officers and librarians and mess hall staff and whoever he’s arguing with in their Interspecies Ethics lecture this time. He smiles at the bartender at his favorite dive, at the hot young thing who comes slinking up looking for a second round, at Leonard when he wonders why he sent said hot young thing packing. He smiles at the group of third-years whispering and stealing glances at him as they cross paths on the sidewalk, and at his friend Cupcake while he’s shaking out his hand, licking the blood off his teeth and setting his feet for the next strike.

So it’s not that he doesn’t smile at all. It’s just that they’re just not _real_ smiles. Not a single one of them.

Now that Leonard’s cottoned on to this, he almost wishes that he hadn’t, that he could erase this niggling disquiet from his mind and go back to accepting Jim’s friendly chatter at face value. It’s flat-out unsettling realizing how affected most of Jim’s interactions are, wondering how deep that posturing really goes. Thinking about it, Leonard can’t be certain he’s ever _once_ seen Jim smile and actually mean it. Not even at him, and he’s pretty sure Jim likes him as well as anyone.

Shit, Leonard’s no ray of sunshine himself, but at least he owns that. He’s a cheerless old cuss with a whole caravan of baggage and enough life experience to know there’s no point in hoping things will ever get better. That’s who he is, and he’s not about to soften up just to make it easier on anyone else having to deal with him.

Jim, though – he’s got everyone fooled. Leonard’s the only one who seems to notice that those charming smiles are about as genuine as the words Jim whispers into his latest conquest’s ear, or the pointedly nonchalant way he describes barely studying for the exam they all know he’ll likely set the curve for. Jim puts so much _work_ into pretending to be carefree, confident, invulnerable. The smiles are just another part of his act: bravado and swagger and misdirection, smoke and mirrors, gleaming white teeth and shuttered eyes.

It’s none of Leonard’s business – he barely knows the kid, after all – but if it were, he’d think it’s a crying shame. Ain’t no kind of way to live, if you ask him – busting your ass all day every day to cover up how goddamn miserable you are. Better to let go of the pretense entirely and save yourself the effort of trying to make other people feel better about the shitty hand life dealt you.

Not that Leonard’s speaking from experience, or anything.

  


**2**

As disconcerting as it was to realize Jim’s smiley, upbeat persona was just that – an act, a mask he slips on to help things go his way and keep folks at arm’s length – Leonard’s doubly perplexed by the follow-up realization that the cold, brittle man under the mask may not be the real Jim either.

Oh, he can be a complete and utter shithead when he wants to be; Leonard will be the first to admit that. Whatever it was that’s fucked him up so thoroughly – and there was _something_ , no question about that, Leonard’s been practicing medicine long enough to know trauma when he sees it – it can’t be too far behind him, and he clearly hasn’t even begun to heal from it. Leonard’s seen the mask slip a couple times now, when Jim feels cornered or when someone steps on one of his invisible tripwires. It’s terrifying how instantaneous the shift is, how viciously Jim lashes out, his lean body electrified by a savage, no-holds-barred violence that sends all but the most hardened bruisers scrambling for the exits in short order.

Even on his good days, Jim’s maddeningly reckless. He’s brilliant in a lot of ways, startlingly so, maybe the single smartest person Leonard’s ever met in real life – but at the same time he doesn’t have the sense God gave a goose, and he finds his way into the most ridiculous scrapes at every turn. Leonard’s forever tasked with hauling him out of one dumbshit scheme or another, because apparently _babysitting grown-ass men_ got added to his job description somewhere along the way. There seems to be no limit to Jim’s taste for trouble, and legal or otherwise, his bad ideas have a way of spiraling into catastrophes if Leonard doesn’t intervene in time.

All of this together is a recipe for nonstop disaster. They haven’t even finished out their first semester yet, and already Jim must have broken every bone in his right hand through fights, accidents, and assorted other idiocy. (Speaking of _brittle_ , Jesus. Mama Kirk clearly didn’t make her boy drink his milk growing up.)

But that’s not the whole story of Jim Kirk. Yeah, he’s a mean son of a bitch from time to time, and a reliable pain in Leonard’s ass day in and day out – but he can also be shockingly thoughtful when the mood takes him, considerate and supportive in a way that always catches Leonard off guard. Leonard’s started to suspect the kid’s a good deal more sensitive than he lets on, and a touch lonely into the bargain.

Maybe more than just a touch. Maybe _lonely_ ain’t even the right term for it. All Leonard knows is that every great once in a while he catches a glimpse of this _look_ Jim gets to him, when he’s a little drunk or falling-down tired after a long week and he thinks Leonard isn’t paying attention. Leonard can’t put words to it, couldn’t begin to analyze all that or put a proper label on it, but it’s something terrible to see. It would probably break his heart if the damn thing weren’t bled dry and out of service.

There’s an honest-to-God _sweetness_ in Jim, deep down under all the anger and distrust. He was probably a real nice kid once upon a time, before life had its unforgiving way with him.

Leonard can’t help but wonder how Jim might’ve turned out if the universe had been just a little bit kinder to him.

But then, hell, what does it matter? Sure, if Jim had an easier time of things coming up, he’d probably be less of a bastard now. If Leonard hadn’t fucked up every opportunity he was given, he’d still be living the life he was meant to have and the two of them never would’ve met. If a frog had wings, it wouldn’t bump its ass when it hopped. No sense in daydreaming about what could’ve been.

  


**3**

The longer they know each other, though, the more Leonard starts seeing of that other Jim – the sweet kid aged beyond his years, the half-feral stray mutt of a man who turned up on Leonard’s doorstep and scratched and whined to be let in.

He comes over to Leonard’s dorm on Christmas morning with a bottle of whiskey, a bag of takeout, and a drive packed full of holoprograms he’s been wanting to play.

He badgers Leonard into at least _trying_ for his flight certs so he can qualify for a senior starship officer position, because he’s unilaterally decided Leonard’s going to be his CMO one day and he won’t hear a single word to the contrary.

He bangs Leonard’s door down in the middle of the night breathless and quivering, absolutely convinced that he’s dying, because it turns out he’s been having panic attacks for half his fucking life without ever understanding what they _are_ or talking to a goddamn doctor about them.

He reveals tidbits and trickles of information about himself, some trivial, others hinting at a much bigger picture Leonard knows better than to prod for: the fascination with mechanics he picked up from his ma; the older brother he worshipped as a young tot and hasn’t seen in years; a stepfather referenced only obliquely and with poisonous contempt; his distaste for any and all nut butters; the liquors he opts for when he’s drinking to have a good time versus drinking to get drunk; a handful of lively stories about his run-ins with the law back in Riverside, and a few much livelier ones about things he was never caught for; the equivalency certificate he got instead of a diploma after dropping out at 16; the motorcycle he poured his blood, sweat, and tears into and then handed off to a complete stranger on a whim right before leaving for the Academy.

He falls asleep on Leonard’s bed during an all-night cram session and somehow manages to wind his entire body around Leonard’s leg so securely that Leonard practically has to kick him in the balls to get loose so he can go to the bathroom.

He haunts Leonard’s steps like a shadow through the worst of his episodes, pestering him relentlessly with an unending barrage of questions and requests and tall tales and gossip – _could you believe the bullshit Garcia was going on about in class today, do you want pizza or Indian for dinner, I need a spotter so get your gym clothes on or I_ will _make you go in your boxers, am I crazy or is this mole getting bigger, you know what I bet I’ve already guessed Uhura’s name and she just won’t admit it, move your ass your shift starts in ten and Pike’s guest-lecturing in Advanced Tactical so I can’t be late, hypothetically how mad would you be if I broke my thumb again on Monday and didn’t tell you and now I’m pretty sure the nurse at student health reset it weird, will you please take Survival Strategies with me next semester if I promise not to let you get eaten by a bear, I’m not kidding what the fuck is up with this mole_ – on and on and on, demanding Leonard’s constant attention and refusing to take silence for an answer. When the floodwaters are at their blackest and most turbulent, Jim forces him to keep his head above the surface whether he wants to or not, pushes food on him and gets him up out of bed in the morning and walks him to class and begs favors and talks and talks and _talks_ until Leonard finally starts talking back.

He drinks himself stupid in Leonard’s room one cold January night instead of disappearing to some grimy shithole bar looking for a fight, passes out on the couch under Leonard’s granny’s quilt and snores like a damn chainsaw all night, and in the morning he goes out and brings back coffee and greasy breakfast burritos and then plops himself down cross-legged on the end of Leonard’s bed and throws sugar packets at his head until he gets up to come eat.

And he smiles. _Real_ smiles, spontaneous and sincere and unaffected.

They’re not for everyone to see. Most folks have to content themselves with that artificial megawatt grin, same as before. Hell, even Leonard still gets that one sometimes. But more and more, he’s started noticing the genuine article, most often when it’s just the two of them shooting the shit or slogging through homework together, no one else around to impress or deflect.

Jim’s a pretty accomplished faker, but Leonard is learning to spot the difference between a put-on smile and the real deal. Try as he might to mimic a proper Duchenne, Jim’s eyes tend to give him away. He can’t quite replicate the imperfect beauty of a heartfelt smile: the brightening of his eyes, the particular way they squint up, the sharp little fine lines that etch out beside and below – not crow’s feet, exactly, but deep, curving, not-quite-symmetrical creases arcing out from each eye like the long trailing tail of a comet.

Those lines are always the dead giveaway. There’s inevitably something a tad off about them when Jim’s faking.

But when he’s not faking? When he’s smiling not to get his way or disguise his real emotions, but just because he feels like it, because he’s relaxed and comfortable and actually _happy_ for once in his damn life?

Well, shit.

Jim’s a good-looking kid, that’s no secret to anybody – certainly not to Jim – but when he smiles, _really_ smiles, he’s a goddamn knockout. That’s the kind of smile that covers a multitude of sins, and a good thing, too, since lord knows Jim’s got multitudes to cover. And Leonard forgives him every last one, no matter how egregious, because it turns out his worn-out old clunker of a heart still has some juice left in it after all, and damned if it wouldn’t do just about anything to keep Jim smiling like that.

  


**4**

So this is how things stand going into their last semester at the Academy.

Leonard has just recently passed the exam to get his flight certs, much to his own amazement and Jim’s insufferable smugness, and instead of asking to stay on at SFM or be placed at a nice quiet research center somewhere, he’s submitted a request to be assigned to starship duty. The brand-spanking-new USS Enterprise is at the top of his list, followed by the rest of Jim’s preferred choices. Leonard himself doesn’t really give a damn which warp-capable deathtrap they end up on; he just prays that Jim’s right and Captain Pike will pull some strings to get them placed together.

Because there’s no way in hell Leonard’s getting on _any_ ship without Jim. After all, Jim’s the whole reason he bid a sad farewell to his final shred of sanity and put in for a starship assignment in the first place. He can’t very well let the kid take off into the great unknown without him, can he? Fool would probably break both his legs on his first away mission, or get to snacking on some kind of alien fruit that turns his eyeballs inside out and sets him foaming at the mouth, or some other such nonsense. Nobody finds trouble like Jim Kirk, and Leonard has no intention of letting natural selection win this particular war. He’s invested too much time and effort into that idiot’s health to trade him off to some other doctor he’s never even met and just cross his fingers that it all turns out okay.

No, wherever Jim goes, Leonard’s going too – and Jim’s had his heart set on the stars since day one, so Leonard’s got no choice but to make his peace with the inevitability of spending the next however many years of his life out in the black.

It’ll be worth it. He does have to remind himself of that sometimes – like when he stepped out of the shuttle after his flight certs exam and had to beat a hasty retreat to the nearest bathroom to revisit the breakfast Jim had forced on him that morning – but for the most part, he’s pretty much reconciled himself to the road ahead. In his more deranged moments, he’s even kinda _excited_ for it.

That’s Jim’s influence for you. You can’t spend two and a half years living in the pockets of a madman and expect to escape without a little collateral damage.

It’ll be worth it, it will, because Jim belongs out there in the stars, and Leonard – well, Leonard belongs with Jim. The man’s a lunatic and a genius, a pain in the ass and a legend in the making. He’s crazier than a shithouse rat, loyal as a faithful old dog, the worst patient Leonard’s ever encountered and the best friend he could have asked for. He’s wild and sensitive and headstrong and thoughtful and impulsive and _good_ , good down to the very marrow of his bones, and Leonard loves him with everything he’s got left and more he didn’t realize he’d ever had. He’d follow him to the ends of the goddamn universe if he had to.

  


**5**

“C’mon, Jim, you know it doesn’t say anything about you.” Leonard lands a brisk slap between Jim’s hunched shoulders, clinks their bottles together and raises his beer for another swig while Jim continues staring grimly down the barrel of his own. “ _Everyone_ fails. That’s the whole point.”

Jim shakes his head, picking morosely at the label on his bottle. “I really thought I had it this time.”

“You couldn’t have. The simulation’s designed to trip you up no matter which choices you make. You _know_ that. Pike told you the last time. There’s nothing you could’ve done in there that would’ve gotten you a win.”

“There’s got to be a way,” Jim insists.

“There ain’t. I know you don’t want to hear it, but that’s just all there is to it. Everyone’s always going to fail, every time – even you. You could take it a third time, or a fourth, or a hundredth, and the end result’s always going to be the same. It’s probably written into the damn programming.”

That seems to hit home, finally. Jim’s furrowed brow pulls a little tighter for a second, and then just as quickly smooths out, his moody expression relaxing into something closer to his usual Friday night cheer. “Yeah. You’re right.” He takes a pull off his beer and points the bottle in Leonard’s direction, his eyes already looking brighter. “You know what, you’re totally right. Fuck it. Can’t beat an unbeatable test, can you? I mean, I’m good, but I’m not _that_ good.”

“Modest, too,” Leonard says dryly. “If the Maru’s meant to teach humility, I think we can safely say it’s the test that failed, not you.”

“Modesty’s not going to get me into that captain’s chair,” Jim rejoins, his dalliance with self-doubt apparently firmly behind him now. “You know what is? Boldness. Innovation. _Vision_.”

“Oh, I’ve got vision, all right,” Leonard mutters. “Visions of all the shit you’re gonna get yourself into the second we get out there. They don’t give field promotions for dumbassery, you know.”

“Nah, of course they do. You just gotta know how to sell it. Don’t you remember that story about Pike when he was still on the Olympus and he and his…he, uh…” Jim trails off, his eyes fixed on something over Leonard’s shoulder.

Leonard gives him a prompting kick under the table. “You planning on actually telling this story any time soon, or should I just dream up the plot myself?” He twists around on his stool and looks behind him, searching for what’s got Jim so distracted, and –

Ah. Of course.

He turns back to Jim, who’s still making eyes at the pretty, vaguely familiar-looking, probably very _chilly_ Orion girl by the bar. “Friend of yours?”

Jim shoots him a sharp-toothed grin. “She will be.” He pushes back from the table, gets to his feet and claps Leonard on the shoulder, a well-established signal that buddy time is officially over. “Let’s just say I’m chasing my vision.”

Leonard rolls his eyes and takes another pull off his beer. Now that Jim’s on the prowl, he may as well kill this bottle and head home. “Just don’t forget to chase _her_ with an STI booster, Casanova. You’re almost due.”

“Yes, Doctor,” Jim sing-songs obediently. He glances over to the bar again, offers tonight’s girl a suggestive little smirk, and then looks back at Leonard, his expression sobering. “Hey, listen – thanks for showing up today, man. Couldn’t have failed miserably without you.”

Leonard snorts. “Oh, I think you’d’ve managed somehow.” He finishes off his beer and gives Jim a quick once-over, arching a questioning eyebrow. “You took this one pretty hard, kid. Sure you’re all right?”

“Yeah, no. I’m good. Just needed some sense knocked into me, I guess. And that’s what I have you for, right?” Jim squeezes Leonard’s shoulder and smiles at him, a real smile, lines curving out from his comet-bright eyes. “Don’t worry about me, Bones. I think I’ve learned my lesson this time.”

  


**6**

Sitting in the hearing watching Jim get reamed out in front of the entire goddamn Academy, Leonard honestly can’t decide who he’s most pissed at:

Jim, for cheating on the test.  
Himself, for not seeing this coming.  
Admiral Barnett, who could’ve handled this privately but instead decided to haul Jim up on display and make an example of him.  
That stone-faced Vulcan bastard, who doesn’t know Jim from Adam but somehow has the absolute fucking _gall_ to bring up his father and throw that in his face in front of everyone.

Scratch that. It’s definitely the Vulcan.

Jim’s pretty high up on the list, though, only he’s got such a kicked-dog look to him by the time everyone’s streaming out of the room on their way to Hangar One that Leonard swallows back his anger with a sigh and just lays a hand on the kid’s back, bracing him against the raging shitstorm he just weathered. Jim’s really put his foot in it this time, but he’ll wriggle out of this somehow, same as he always does. They’ll be okay.

+

Except it turns out that _they_ won’t be anything – not today, anyway.

Jim’s little trick has landed him on academic suspension, which means he’s grounded until the board makes their ruling – which in turn means Leonard’s been assigned to Jim’s dream ship _alone_ , and now he has to go set out into the black for the first time without the one person he’s always assumed would be along for the ride.

The assignment of cadets to shuttles is orderly enough, but Leonard’s mind is in chaos, swerving wildly between shock and outrage, disbelief and ice-cold gut-churning _terror_ :

How can he do this by himself?

How could Jim do this to him?

How could the brass be so petty and short-sighted as to leave one of their top-ranked cadets behind in an emergency like this?

What even is the emergency they’re blindly flying off into?

Why can’t Jim get it through his thick skull that the rules apply to everyone, even the ones he thinks are stupid?

Why can’t the board pull their heads out of their asses and realize how idiotic it is to throw away one of their best assets over a single dumb stunt?

What if Jim freaks out while he’s gone?

What if he _dies_ out there and never sees Jim again?

What if –

A shuttle hums past overhead, reminding him of where he’s supposed to be. He doesn’t have time for a melt-down right now. He’s got to get his gear in order and get to the Enterprise – and Christ, it just _had_ to be the goddamn Enterprise, didn’t it?

It doesn’t matter that this isn’t the way it was supposed to happen, that he was counting on Jim to do this with him, to lead the way and ease his fears and light the path for him to follow. He has a job to do. He has to turn off everything else and just be a doctor, an _officer_ , and he has to do it now.

“Look, Jim,” he says – awkward, reluctant, furious with Jim for putting him in this position and scared shitless at the thought that he may never get the chance to chew him out over it – “I gotta go.”

“Yeah.” Jim turns toward him quickly, holds out a hand to shake. “Yeah, you go. Be safe.”

Jim’s hand is warm in his, steady and strong. His smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

+

“I’m doing you a favor,” he snaps, plucking a vial out of the tray of vaccines and fitting it into the injector. “I couldn’t just leave you there looking all pathetic.”

It’s true, every word of it. It’s just not the _whole_ truth, and they simply don’t have time for all that right now.

_I couldn’t leave you at all. I can’t go out there without you. You’re the reason I’m doing this. You’re the reason I do anything. You’re the only thing I’ve got in this whole fucking universe and if we both get kicked out for this, so be it, just so long as you let me come with you wherever you go next._

He’ll tell Jim later, maybe. If they live through this shit and there’s a later to tell him in – maybe he will.

+

He doesn’t.

+

And then – much, much, _much_ later – he does.

  


**7**

“You didn’t even _try_ to get our time out here reduced?”

“Why would I get it reduced? Bones, we know our way through the nebula now. Can you imagine what we’ll find?”

“Alien despots hell-bent on killing us?” Leonard suggests flatly, since Jim did _ask_. He really ought to know better than to question Leonard’s imagination by now. “Deadly space-borne viruses and bacteria? Incomprehensible cosmic anomalies that could wipe us out in an instant?”

“It’s gonna be so much fun,” Jim says dreamily.

Leonard glances over, confirming to himself that Jim really does look every bit as animated and gleeful as he sounds. He scoffs, as Jim surely expects, but the truth is it’s mostly just for show. He couldn’t be more relieved by the way Jim seems to have bounced back in the past couple days, the spring finally back in his step, his eyes agleam with the potential of who even knows what kind of trouble they’ll find their way into next.

It’s been a long while since Leonard’s seen Jim this excited about the life they’ve chosen. He’s sure as hell not going to be the one to bring him down.

“By the way, where are we going?” Jim asks as the doors whoosh open ahead of them. “I thought we were gonna get a drink.”

Leonard shrugs, trying to tamp down on a sudden surge of anxiety that he’s gone about this whole thing completely ass-backwards and Jim’s going to _kill_ him. “I know you told me to keep it under wraps, but, uh…”

“ _Happy birthday!_ ”

He forces himself to look at Jim, steeling his poor coward’s heart for the possibility that he’s fucked this up spectacularly and Jim will be furious – or, worse, _hurt_ – and for an instant he fears the worst when he sees that Jim’s face has gone blank, utterly expressionless in the way he only gets when he’s processing something horrible. Oh, God, Jim hates it, Leonard’s betrayed his trust and made a mess of everything, he should’ve gone with his head instead of his gut and just let the kid drown his sorrows in private like always –

Jim smiles.

+

Later, Leonard will wonder if maybe this should have been the moment for him – hours before it actually happened, before _the_ moment that upended his whole life and rewrote the story he thought he was living.

The moment when the world he knew shifted around him, the ground beneath his feet suddenly curving up overhead like the impossible streets of Yorktown and leaving him in free fall.

The moment he held Jim’s paper-white face in his hands and searched for an explanation in Jim’s wide unguarded eyes.

The moment everything changed – for the better, and for good.

It took him by surprise, in the end, but maybe it shouldn’t have. Maybe, before all that, he should have paused for just a little longer in _this_ moment, and paid better attention to his own reaction: his smile blossoming in time with Jim’s; his heart thrilling to the brilliant sun-warm radiance of Jim's happiness; his every fear instantly vanquished at the sight of those long-absent lines etching out from Jim’s eyes like comet tails.

  


**8**

“Careful,” Jim murmurs, tracing his fingertips delicately over Leonard’s lips before prodding one rather more firmly into his cheek. “Hasn’t anybody ever told you your face might stick like that?”

Somebody has, in fact – a certain man by the name of Jim Kirk, currently to be found lounging bare-assed and wild-haired on Leonard’s chest, jabbing an insistent finger into the crease of his left laugh line. He’s told him two or three times today alone, and he’ll probably tell him a few times more before the day is out.

As if _he_ has any room to talk. The nerve of this kid, giving Leonard shit for smiling when he’s cuddled up on top of him grinning like a fool. He’s a hypocrite, that’s what he is. A gorgeous, beguiling, long-lashed hypocrite who’s just lucky Leonard’s too thoroughly fucked out and come-dumb to be bothered with putting him in his place.

“Mmm.” Leonard ducks his head and presses his lips to Jim’s palm, smiles bigger still at the tender curl of Jim’s fingers against his cheek. “Might’ve heard somethin’ to that effect.”

Jim play-frowns at him, that plush lip jutting out dangerously, just begging to be caught between Leonard’s teeth. “And? C’mon, Bones, aren’t you _scared_? I thought you were the one so concerned with maintaining your reputation. Hard to do that without your famous scowl.”

Leonard’s scared of lots of things. Flying. Heights. Centipedes. Pandemics. One of his staff giving Jim the wrong medication when he’s not around. Being attacked by genocidal maniacs and wrecked on a hostile planet where no one’ll ever find him. Winding up helpless and in pain and having to beg for a dignified death like his daddy. Losing the use of his hands. Losing his mind. Losing Jim.

So yeah, Leonard’s scared of plenty. He’s never professed otherwise.

But this? Jim’s hand on his cheek, Jim’s warm body weighing him down into the mattress, Jim’s bright irresistible summer-sky eyes and those deep curving lines arcing out across his temples even as his dissembling mouth wavers in its pout – 

Leonard shakes his head, watches spellbound and joy-drunk as Jim’s pretend frown gives up the ghost and melts into a heart-stopping smile. “’fraid not, kid.”

And Jim – his beautiful, fearless, crinkly-eyed Jim, wide open to him at last and sweeter at his core than he could’ve ever imagined – Jim leans up and kisses each of his laugh lines in turn, fits his smiling mouth to Leonard’s and breathes into the kiss: “ _Good_.”

**Author's Note:**

> So there you have it: our first official visit to the Academy era, Leonard's side of a few key canon scenes, and your first hint at the plot of the long-overdue Yorktown fic. All because [Xeldablade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xeldablade) sent me a silly message about Jim's eye crinkles. Funny how these things work.
> 
> (Oh, and it _is_ common knowledge that Jim used Gaila to cheat on the Kobayashi Maru, right? If not, that scene probably made...not a lot of sense.)
> 
> I love you all. Thank you for being so very wonderful. ♥♥♥


End file.
